Police: Ex-death row inmate Cooper dead of apparent suicide

INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana woman who was once the nation's youngest person on death row but whose sentence was eventually commuted to a prison term was found dead in Indianapolis on Tuesday.

Indianapolis police said 45-year-old Paula Cooper was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound outside a residence on the city's northwest side. Cooper had been released from prison about two years ago, after the Indiana Supreme Court set aside her death sentence and gave her a 60-year prison term.

Cooper was 16 when she was sentenced to death in 1986 after confessing to her role in the murder of a 78-year-old Gary Bible studies teacher the year before. Cooper admitted stabbing 78-year-old Ruth Pelke 33 times with a 12-inch butcher knife in a robbery that netted four youths $10 and an old car. Cooper was 15 at the time the crime was committed.

Her death sentence enraged human rights activists in the U.S. and Europe and drew a plea for clemency from Pope John Paul II. In 1988, a priest delivered a petition to Indianapolis with more than 2 million signatures protesting Cooper's sentence.

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